Dr. R.H. (Rick) Derksen

Position:
  • Post-doctoral researcher
Expertise:
  • Balto-Slavic historical linguistics


Telephone number: +31 (0)71 527 2125
E-Mail: r.h.derksen@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department: Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Leiden Univ Centre for Linguistics, LUCL VIET
Office Address: Witte Singel-complex
P.N. van Eyckhof 3
2311 BV Leiden
Room number 204B


Research

My main field of research is Balto-Slavic historical linguistics, with an emphasis on accentology and etymology.

Publications

  • 2008 Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon. Leiden-Boston: Brill.
  • 2005 “The orthography of the Elbing Vocabulary and the relationship between Old Prussian and East Baltic”, Baltistica VI priedas, 51-67.
  • 2004 “Balto-Slavic accentuation: an update”, Histoire Épistémologie Langage 26/2 (2004), 81-92.
  • 2003 “Slavic *jь-”, Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics 30, 97-105.
  • 2003 “On the reception of Winter’s law”, Baltistica 37(1) 2002, 5-13.
  • 1996 Metatony in Baltic (= Leiden Studies in Indo-European 6). Amsterdam–Atlanta: Rodopi. (458 pp.)

Other publications can be found in the METIS database: An overview is presented on the METIS website.

Teaching activities

Since 1990 I have taught a number of classes, in particular Lithuanian and Old Church Slavic. In December 2003, I gave a one-week Old Prussian course at the University of Munich. Old Prussian is also the language that I taught at the 2006 Leiden Summer School in Indo-European Linguistics.

Curriculum Vitae

I was born in the East of the Netherlands in 1964. In 1982, I moved to Utrecht to study Classics. After my propaedeutic exam, I took up Slavic Studies and Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University, obtaining Master’s degrees in both (June and August 1989, respectively). Among my teachers were Robert Beekes, Frederik Kortlandt, Alexander Lubotsky and Willem Vermeer. In 1996, I received a PhD degree for my thesis Metatony in Baltic, which had been written under the supervision of Frederik Kortlandt. From 1998 onwards I have been working on the Slavic and Baltic components of the Indo-European Etymological Dictionary project. My etymological dictionary of the Slavic inherited lexical stock appeared in print in 2008. Its Baltic companion is scheduled for 2009.

Last Modified: 03-05-2011